Some Congressional analysts are speculating that the sudden and dramatic overthrow of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will make it more difficult to avoid a government shutdown next month.
McCarthy was voted out as House Speaker on October 3 due to a lack of support among his own caucus. He is the first Speaker in history to be so removed.
But because McCarthy was instrumental in rounding up Congressional support for a temporary funding bill designed to keep the government running until November 17, worries that a government shutdown may finally become reality have become general.
“A mid-November US government shutdown, already a serious risk, is increasingly likely following the toppling of Speaker Kevin McCarthy,” notes Congressional reporter Erik Wasson for the news service Bloomberg.
Goldman Sachs analysts, according to the publication Barron’s, are forecasting that the “ouster of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker raises the odds of a government shutdown later in the quarter.”
The Washington Post agrees: “Kevin McCarthy’s ouster from the House Speakership Tuesday appears to have increased the risk that the U.S. Government will shut down next month.”
The paper additionally notes that the “chaos on the House floor is eating into the time necessary to forge a bipartisan agreement on spending.”
The outlook for specific fiscal legislation appears equally doubtful. According to Glenn Thompson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, a new five-year farm bill may be doomed simply because of the time it may take to elect a new Speaker.
“Without a Speaker, you can’t do anything,” Thompson remarked to the publication Roll Call.
Because it takes more than a few weeks to bring an appropriations bill to the House floor, time in the lower chamber is currently a precious commodity. “Every day we lose our ability to get something done by November 17,” Connecticut Representative Rosa De Lauro, remarked to the Post.
But other observers say that once a new Speaker is elected, attention in the House will almost entirely be focused on the mid-November budget deadline. Nominations for the next Speaker are expected to be formally made next week on October 11.
By Garry Boulard
